Errors on government Web site make it difficult to track stimulus money

WASHINGTON - When Barbara Harrison, director of the housing
authority in Burkburnett, Texas, recently filled out a form to
report a $99,664 federal stimulus award, she didn't know the number
for her local congressional district. She doesn't remember what she
listed, and now, the grant shows up on a federal Web site as
District 00 - which doesn't exist.

It's one of hundreds of mistakes on the site, meant to stand as
a symbol of transparency about where the government money is going.
Instead, it's giving critics, including Texas Republican lawmakers,
fodder to attack President Barack Obama's $787 billion economic
stimulus plan as wasteful, inefficient and ineffective.

"This information only confirms my worst fears about the
stimulus and the Obama administration's handling of the economic
crisis," said Rep. Joe Barton, R-Arlington. "Democrats voted to
spend nearly $1 trillion taxpayer dollars with very little
oversight, and it has turned into a boondoggle."

Until Wednesday night, the Web site, recovery.gov, listed more
than 400 "phantom" districts across the United States. In Texas
alone, it shows $15 million spent and 98 jobs created or saved in
districts that don't exist.

Critics also argue that the recovery.gov site produces fuzzy
math in real districts, too. In Rep. Pete Sessions' district, No.
32, the Web site says $59.4 million was used to create 54.8
jobs.

Such figures follow a Dallas Morning News report that the 19,752
jobs created or saved in Texas with stimulus money appear to be
overstated because some recipients grossly overestimated the number
of jobs created. And today, a new federal report is expected to
raise questions about the quality of data and validity of claims
about the number of jobs created or saved.

"The Obama administration's incompetent stimulus reporting gives
me zero confidence in their ability to count jobs in the 32nd
Congressional District - or anywhere," said Sessions, R-Dallas.

Some of those disparities can be explained by the fact that
projects are in varying stages of completion, said Cheryl Arvidson,
spokeswoman for the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board,
which oversees the stimulus reporting process.

Funding for state agencies, such as the Texas Education Agency,
is often coded to the Austin area, rather than the individual
school districts that end up receiving money. That can skew some of
the totals, Arvidson said.

The phantom districts are not "black holes of money," Arvidson
said; she attributed mistakes to human error. Stimulus funding
recipients typically report their awards online, leaving ample
opportunity for typos and other confusion.

One of Texas' "phantom" districts, No. 52, appears to be the
result of someone transposing the numbers of a project's correct
district, No. 25. That project, the construction of a courthouse in
Austin, is real, said a spokeswoman for the U.S. General Services
Administration.

"Just because somebody misstates a congressional district does
not make it a sinister development," Arvidson said.

She said she hoped the issue would be cleared up by the next
reporting date in January, and by Wednesday night, money listed in
nonexistent districts was categorized under "unassigned
congressional district."

Even if the mistakes are small, some Texas Republicans said,
those errors and other misrepresentations make it difficult to have
confidence in the stimulus.

"OK, fine. It is human mistakes on the districts," said Rep. Jeb
Hensarling, R-Dallas. "But these nonexistent congressional
districts are paired with nonexistent jobs. It's all glitter on a
rotten piece of fruit."

Hensarling said the notion of counting created or saved jobs was
ludicrous in the first place. While stimulus reports say that
640,329 jobs were saved nationwide, labor statistics show that
millions of people have lost jobs.

Others said criticism of the recovery.gov Web site, errors and
all, was unfair. Clay Johnson, director of the technology group of
the watchdog Sunlight Foundation, said the Recovery Board's main
responsibility was to make data available and then let citizens
correct it.

"Complaining about bad data on recovery.gov is like complaining
to Toyota for paying too much for gasoline," he said.

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